1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an implement for use in multi-task tillage of agricultural fields. More particularly, it relates to a universal custom field preparation implement which can be selectively optimized for specialized post-harvest tillage, fall tillage, spring aeration and/or tillage, one-pass tillage for seed bed preparation, and selective broadcast soil entrainment of seed for non-row crops and cover crops, and granular fertilizer, lime, herbicides, pesticides, and the like, for general soil conditioning.
2. Background of the Invention
Agricultural field soil tillage is dependent upon many variables, including seasonal activities, such as spring tillage, preparation of seed beds for receiving fertilizer and seed for a variety of crops to be planted, post-harvest summer and fall tillage, crop residue size reduction and soil incorporation, soil preparation for summer or fall seeding of cover and winter crops, late fall tillage to prepare the soil for winter conditions, including freezing, thawing, wind, water, and snow cover conditions, and early spring tillage to open, mix, and warm the soil in preparation for early season planting activities. Additionally, soils vary in type, from sand to loam, to heavier soil with varying clay contents, to rocky, which different soil types each have varying drainage and heating/cooling characteristics. Tillage conditions vary greatly, depending on the previous cropping history of the land, ranging from little or very light crop residue to growing cover crop, to legume and grass sods, to very heavy crop residue such as after corn harvest by combine. Recently developed crop varieties have increased resistance to attack by insects, fungi, and disease. However, the residue from these plants also show decreased levels of degradation after harvest, with both increased root residue, accompanied by soil clods formed around the root remnants, and tough fibrous stalks which are more resistant to cutting and slicing implements. Increasingly, as farming operators are able to increase the amount of acreage they till to optimize their use of and investment in larger and more efficient tractors and machinery, individual farm businesses may be tilling fields separated by considerable distances, with fields located 30 and even 50 miles or more from the operator's home base, thereby increasing the likelihood that any given farm operator may be experiencing many different soil conditions in any season. Furthermore, such widely dispersed soil tillage during any season of the year greatly increases the likelihood that the farm operator will experience most or all of such variable conditions, including widely disparate wet and dry conditions, during a tillage season, often during the same day. Accordingly, many implements which are highly effective under one set of conditions may be not nearly as effective or totally ineffective under different variable conditions.
The need to perform effective soil tillage under such widely varying soil, weather, and crop residue conditions on an almost daily basis has financial implications for such operators. Tillage implements have become increasingly complex in order to carry out single-pass tillage. Such complexity results both from longer implements which carry a variety of implement components over and through the soil for different, successive tillage treatments, to wider implements which enable one tractor to pull implements having tilling widths as wide as up to 45 feet or more. Such implements both minimize the number of trips the tractor must make across a given field, and increase the acreage which can be covered with a single tillage implement during a work day or tillage season in which the amount of land a farm operation can till is directly dependent upon the number of limited hours of available tillage time. For the mobile farmer, implement width is usually limited by the extent to which the width of the implement can be reduced for over-the-road travel by the hinging capability of the implement to pivot and position side wings of the implement over a central, wheeled-carriage main body section to a permissible “wide-load” size which can be transported over available highways. Increasingly, a farm operator may find a need to purchase several costly complex implements to optimize the effectiveness of his tillage under all of the variable soil, residue, weather, and crop types and varieties with which he is engaged. Conversely, implements which include multiple aggressive soil tillage implement components may not be efficient or desirable when less aggressive tillage, requiring less power and fuel, may be adequate.
Accordingly, a need exists for a universal custom field preparation implement which can effectively and efficiently optimize tillage capabilities for a wide variety of soil and seasonal tillage requirements.